Machine-readable listings

Nextest provides machine-readable listings in two formats:

1. As lists of tests
2. As lists of test binaries

Machine-readable test lists

To produce a list of tests as JSON, run:

cargo nextest list --message-format json

Specify --message-format json-pretty for formatted output.

Parsing nextest's output

If parsing output in Rust, use nextest-metadata's TestListSummary. This is the library nextest itself uses to generate output, and will always be in sync.

A JSON schema is not currently available, but is planned to be.

Machine-readable binary lists

In some cases, you may wish to avoid running test binaries. For example:

• You're cross-compiling tests and a target runner is not available.
• You will perform operations on test binaries after building and before running tests.
• You have to roll your own version of nextest's archive feature.

In these cases, nextest can provide the list of test binaries as JSON, without executing them to find the list of test instances. Run:

cargo nextest list --list-type binaries-only --message-format json

Specify --message-format json-pretty for formatted output.

Examples

Here's some example output for camino. Below, the value of "package-id" can be matched up to the package IDs produced by running cargo metadata.

Example test list

% cargo nextest list --all-features --lib --message-format json-pretty
{
  "rust-build-meta": {
    "target-directory": "/home/user/dev/camino/target",
    "base-output-directories": [
      "debug"
    ],
    "non-test-binaries": {},
    "build-script-out-dirs": {
      "path+file:///home/user/dev/camino#1.1.7": "debug/build/camino-3e59e0a4294df039/out"
    },
    "linked-paths": [],
    "platforms": {
      "host": {
        "platform": {
          "triple": "x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu",
          "target-features": [
            "fxsr",
            "sse",
            "sse2"
          ]
        },
        "libdir": {
          "status": "available",
          "path": "/home/user/.rustup/toolchains/stable-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/lib/rustlib/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/lib"
        }
      },
      "targets": []
    },
    "target-platforms": [
      {
        "triple": "x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu",
        "target-features": [
          "fxsr",
          "sse",
          "sse2"
        ]
      }
    ],
    "target-platform": null
  },
  "test-count": 5,
  "rust-suites": {
    "camino": {
      "package-name": "camino",
      "binary-id": "camino",
      "binary-name": "camino",
      "package-id": "path+file:///home/user/dev/camino#1.1.7",
      "kind": "lib",
      "binary-path": "/home/user/dev/camino/target/debug/deps/camino-5be71433c290cfc5",
      "build-platform": "target",
      "cwd": "/home/user/dev/camino",
      "status": "listed",
      "testcases": {
        "serde_impls::tests::invalid_utf8": {
          "ignored": false,
          "filter-match": {
            "status": "matches"
          }
        },
        "serde_impls::tests::valid_utf8": {
          "ignored": false,
          "filter-match": {
            "status": "matches"
          }
        },
        "tests::test_borrowed_into": {
          "ignored": false,
          "filter-match": {
            "status": "matches"
          }
        },
        "tests::test_deref_mut": {
          "ignored": false,
          "filter-match": {
            "status": "matches"
          }
        },
        "tests::test_owned_into": {
          "ignored": false,
          "filter-match": {
            "status": "matches"
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Example binary list

% cargo nextest list --all-features --lib --list-type binaries-only --message-format json-pretty
{
  "rust-build-meta": {
    "target-directory": "/home/rain/dev/camino/target",
    "base-output-directories": [
      "debug"
    ],
    "non-test-binaries": {},
    "build-script-out-dirs": {
      "path+file:///home/rain/dev/camino#1.1.7": "debug/build/camino-3e59e0a4294df039/out"
    },
    "linked-paths": [],
    "platforms": {
      "host": {
        "platform": {
          "triple": "x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu",
          "target-features": [
            "fxsr",
            "sse",
            "sse2"
          ]
        },
        "libdir": {
          "status": "available",
          "path": "/home/rain/.rustup/toolchains/stable-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/lib/rustlib/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/lib"
        }
      },
      "targets": []
    },
    "target-platforms": [
      {
        "triple": "x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu",
        "target-features": [
          "fxsr",
          "sse",
          "sse2"
        ]
      }
    ],
    "target-platform": null
  },
  "rust-binaries": {
    "camino": {
      "binary-id": "camino",
      "binary-name": "camino",
      "package-id": "path+file:///home/rain/dev/camino#1.1.7",
      "kind": "lib",
      "binary-path": "/home/rain/dev/camino/target/debug/deps/camino-5be71433c290cfc5",
      "build-platform": "target"
    }
  }
}